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Nestled into the steep mountains, and bamboo and pine forests of Taiwan is Sun Moon Lake, about an hour's drive from the city of Taichung, one of Taiwan's largest industrial complexes. Made in Taiwan Visiting the woodworking-machinery center of the Far East by Sandor agyszalanczy been lifted, but products from the Far East are still suspect. Some woodworkers assume machines made in Taiwan are as shoddy as the Japanese products of 20 years ago. But the country now produces a large percentage of the woodworking machines sold in the United States and is responsible for the affordable-machinery revolution that's affected cabinet shops and hobbyist woodworkers around the globe. Chances are, a machine or two in your shop was manufactured in Taiwan, even though the label might not say so. To get a firsthand look at the machinery industry in Taiwan, I R visited the Far East last ovember. I met with the owners of over a dozen large and small woodworking-machine-manufacturing companies, and toured their factories to see how the Taiwanese build machines, induding how they design products and control quality. Further, I wanted to find out how their machinery industry is affected by the information and new technology imported from the West and what American tool buyers can expect from Taiwan in the future. I also attended Taiwan's biannual Taipei International Furniture and Woodworking Machinery Show '89 (TI talked with foreign buyers of Taiwanese machines about how these tools rate on the world market, and what to look for when buying Taiwanese machines (see the sidebar on p. 51). FWM 46 Fine Woodworking The factory island-Taiwan R.O.c., the Republic of China, is a small island 80 miles off the coast of mainland China. Although the entire island is about the size of Canada's Vancouver Island-350 S) and emember when "made in Japan" meant the same thing as cheap or inferior ? Now that Japanese cars and electronics are among the best in the world, that stigma has largely miles long and 125 miles wide-Taiwan's population is almost equivalent to all of Canada: about 20 million. In the western central region of the island is the industrial center of Taichung-the heart of Taiwan's woodworking machinery industry. In some neighborhoods, the factories are so dose together, sometimes sharing the same outside walls, and so interdependent because of the way they share resources, that it feels as if Taichung is one big factory, rather than a city with hundreds, maybe thousands, of smaller manufacturers. Collectively, these factories account for more than $50 million worth of machines sold in the U.S. every year, ranging from large industrial machines, like multispindle molders and panel-processing equipment; to familiar medium-size "cabinet-shop" machines, such as tablesaws, jointers and shapers; to dO-it-yourself (commonly called DIY) benchtop tools, like small scroll saws and belt/disc sanders. Small- and medium-size factories often build only similartype machines, say jointers and planers, and some produce only one type of machine, say power feeders. Although larger factories tend to produce a wider range of machines for more than one market, some specialize in DIY, which is the single largest (and growing) market. This is greatly due to the emergence of home centers and hardware-store chains across the U.S. With so many different factories, why don't you see more name- plates from makers like Champ Fond, Jun Shiau and Shen Kung on machines in the U.S. ? Because few Taiwanese dealers sell under their own brand name; instead, they sell through the dozens of U.S. dealers, induding small importers, that send buyers to Taiwan to purchase a factory's standard production items. Large U.S. com